Thank God for Aviemore

It's perhaps not been the best few days for Alex Salmond. I would say for the first time since May, even counting the defeats in Parliament, he's had a bad week. And unfortunately for him it's been on good policy issues.

First the nuclear story. It was a sound move to write to countries signed up to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty to highlight Scotland's opposition to nuclear weapons and to ask for support in Scotland receiving observer status. It continued well the policy of pushing forward Scotland's position as a nation seperate to England. But for God's sake, check who you're writing to when you send letters. Don't just accept that whatever Excel spits out at you is a good thing. Remove the nasty people like Iran, Burma and Zimbabwe from your database. I can just see it now "Dear Mahmoud, Please, please support us and we'll ignore your views on the Holocaust and women and stuff, yours aye, Eck."

There's some people you just don't do business with. First because you don't want to make a stand at any costs, second - well it's just embarrassing to allow Nicol Stephen to score points off your actions and third - the good policy has been lost.

And the 1000 extra/additional/equivalent police officers. The dangers of making promises in opposition that you can't keep in government bit him in the bum this week. It must have been a right red-neck for both Wendy Alexander and Nicol Stephen to make direct hits in the one week.

Still, it's conference this weekend. And he'll perform brilliantly, the SNP members will love it and there will be a bounce. Which will hopefully allow the focus to start to go back onto the good policies.

But the opposition parties will start to have a glimmer of hope - he can be damaged. He isn't invincible after all. There may even be a light...